Current camera module assembly processing involves processing of singulated leadless chip carrier (LCC) substrates. Due to the substrate's near weightless characteristic and tiny size, the assembly handling process for surface-mount technology (SMT), wash and clean, flip-chip, underfill and glass attach has become challenging. Representatively, SMT and glass attach processing is done on one side of the substrate while flip-chip and underfill is done on the other side thus a flip is required. In addition, it is difficult to hold the substrate down due to its weight and size. In particular, the substrate easily gets dislodged with vibration or air. Moreover, there is no space for, for example, use of a vacuum technique to hold the substrate in place. Conventional systems, which have tried to address these issues, include sticking a substrate to a carrier using double sided tape or mechanically clamping the substrate to a carrier. In each case, however, pick, flip and placement or transfer of the substrate from the carrier to, in some cases, another carrier, must occur after each processing step so that processing may occur on both sides of the substrate.
Flip-chip mounting technologies incorporate many different techniques for bonding a microelectronic device (e.g. an image sensor) to a substrate (e.g. a ceramic substrate). One such technique uses ultrasonic energy to bond the device to the substrate. In particular, during an ultrasonic flip-chip mounting process the substrate is clamped against a bottom carrier plate to help stabilize the substrate against movement due to the ultrasonic vibrations. The substrate may be clamped using a plate that press the substrate from the top. Metallic bumps are formed on one face of the microelectronic device and the other face is vacuum attached to an ultrasonic horn. The horn then aligns the device with the substrate and applies an ultrasonic energy that vibrates the device and causes it to bond to the substrate. During this process, it is important that the substrate be held stationary, hence the use of the plate clamping the substrate to the bottom carrier. It has further been found that sandwiching the device between the bottom carrier and a top carrier can improve the handling and robustness of the substrate. When two carriers are used, however, the plate can no longer contact and press the substrate to the bottom carrier because the top carrier is in the way. Thus, the current plate design cannot be used with a substrate carrier having a top carrier over the substrate.